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Home › Forums › Forum Archives › Amateur Harpists › Calibration

Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • July 31, 2009 at 12:18 am #160185
    Geri McQuillen
    Participant

    I should know this, but it has never come up before in my music instruction.

    July 31, 2009 at 12:27 am #160186
    barbara-brundage
    Participant

    Hi, Geri. Usually, unless the maker specifies otherwise, A=440 is the way to go for most harps. For period instruments it’s a lot less, sometimes A=415.

    July 31, 2009 at 12:34 am #160187
    barbara-brundage
    Participant

    Oops, should have said for gut and nylon. I don’t know about wire.

    July 31, 2009 at 1:12 am #160188
    Audrey Nickel
    Participant

    I don’t know what’s standard, but my wire harp is tuned to A-440.

    BTW, it’s really easy to get your tuner off-kilter.

    July 31, 2009 at 1:41 am #160189
    Geri McQuillen
    Participant

    Thank you all kindly.

    July 31, 2009 at 4:24 am #160190
    Audrey Nickel
    Participant

    That probably does explain a lot of your breakage problems.

    You probably already know this, but just in case…it will probably take the wire harp longer to settle into its new tuning than the nylon strung harp (and even that can take a while.

    July 31, 2009 at 3:02 pm #160191
    harp guy
    Participant

    A=440 is generally the most common. I also think it might depend on the harp slightly as well. I have one harp that sounds best when tuned to 440, but another that sounds “thunky” and hollow at 440. It really sings and resonates when tuned to 442 though. I know, I know, it’s a minimal difference in pitch, but I can hear it, and it really makes a tonal difference on my Prelude. So you might want to try 440, then play around with it a little bit.

    July 31, 2009 at 4:01 pm #160192
    Audrey Nickel
    Participant

    It also depends, to a great extent, on whether you plan to play with others. 440-442 is enough difference that you will hear some clashing.

    July 31, 2009 at 8:07 pm #160193
    Geri McQuillen
    Participant

    You are all awesome!

    September 12, 2009 at 4:16 pm #160194
    Liam M
    Participant

    Geri has your string breakage lessened? I was concerned as 13 htz high is not excessive and your string breakage should not be occurring. When I am settling in a new string on a test jig I frequently bring it a full step and one half over and allow it to settle back down over night without breakage.

    What harp do you have?

    September 12, 2009 at 7:33 pm #160195
    Geri McQuillen
    Participant

    Thank you for asking Liam.

    September 13, 2009 at 4:05 am #160196
    Liam M
    Participant

    That’s great to know!

    September 13, 2009 at 2:49 pm #160197
    Audrey Nickel
    Participant

    The difficulty is that so many things can contribute to string breakage.

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Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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